Do You Know How To Make Money for Someone Else?

Public facilities are similar but structured completely differently because their overhead focuses on meeting the demands of the community and the facility's maintenance. There may also be administration and operating expenses in most cases.

And of course, there are the growing number of tennis academies for juniors. They too are looking to increase profits, but that will more often be the task of a strong management team or leader to increase income by recruiting additional players.

When the tennis boom came along in the early 70s, most new facilities were established with the primary goal of being profitable.

In fact, the raw statistics show that today about 20 to 30% of tennis facilities are for-profit.

Amelie Brooks: I'm sitting around 1000 in the WTA rankings right now, and it's taken a lot to get here - travelling alone and everything that comes with that, early matches, late finishes, the losses that taught me more than the wins did, all the hours on court that nobody sees, the challenges to arrange hitting partners and training week to week. This is all part of the progression, and it's a choice I make. I wouldn't want to be doing anything else.

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This question is seldom, or never, brought up in an interview for a position as a tennis pro at a facility. But considering the commitment that has to be made for that criterion to be met, it must be in the minds of both people on both sides of the interview. Let’s start with the interviewer.

Usually, the interviewer of the facility has reviewed the pro's resume and will have a list of the most relevant needs at their facility and how that pro intends to meet those needs. There will be more questions, common to a normal interview, but woven throughout those questions will be an effort to find insight as to how this new pro intends to positively impact the facility's revenue, via increased membership, commission from lessons, or events and tournaments, to name a few.

On the other side of this interaction, the interviewee, who has already gone over the posted job offering, will also have their list of additional questions, but asking the question during the interview, “Do the owners or investors want to make more money?” is not likely to happen. The question becomes an avoided assumption, which can often evolve into undefined future job objectives.

José Luis Antonio Calderon: Tennis Has Its Own Intelligence.
One of the biggest misconceptions in tennis is the belief that excellence automatically transfers from one area of life to another. People often assume that someone who is disciplined, mentally tough, or highly intelligent in business, school, or another sport will naturally perform well on a tennis court.

Sometimes that happens.

Often, it does not.

The reason is simple: tennis has its own intelligence.

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Adding to this challenge is that very few industries have two types of economic operations. They are mostly either a profit-focused operation or a non-profit focused operation. This could explain why the annual turnover rate for teaching pros is 25% when the national average for total separations in the U.S. typically falls between 13% and 18%.

Tennis pros should not have to take this challenge by themselves. There are now three different entities that have formed, providing membership and training programs for tennis pros. You would think that because they are all struggling to either gain or even keep their members, this type of training would be more prevalent, especially because some of those lost members may have left as a result of losing their jobs or deciding on another career.

Lauren Brown: Play is not a niche topic; it is a biological necessity that belongs in every industry, every workplace, and every conversation about human thriving. Watching Acey carry that message into construction management and HVAC sales: that is the movement. We are grateful and inspired!

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